Filings show Sen. Davis dropped big bucks for redistricting fight

Sens. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, Kirk Watson, D-Austin, and Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, look over a set of political boundaries on the Senate floor.File 2011/Austin American-Statesman

Sen. Wendy Davis, fresh off declaring victory in a redistricting battle with Attorney General Greg Abbott, has spent almost $200,000 in campaign cash to defend her Senate district from being retooled by state Republicans, records show.

Davis’ campaign finance reports — the most recent made public late Monday — provide a snapshot of how often the Fort Worth Democrat has tapped campaign coffers the last two years to help wage a redistricting fight against Abbott and Republicans leaders (read here for more on how much Davis raised this period).

Along with the League of United Latin American Citizens, Davis sued the state back in 2011 over political boundaries the Republican-led Legislature approved that year to carve up her district by shifting thousands of black and Hispanic voters into neighboring districts.

Republican leaders since have backed off efforts to redraw the Tarrant County district in which Davis won elections in 2008 and 2012. Abbott’s legal team confirmed that at a May hearing in a San Antonio federal court.

“Wendy won the battle to keep her seat her intact,” said Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist who advises Davis on issues including redistricting.

That victory, however, came with a hefty high price tag for a state senator who was at the center of one of the most expensive legislative races last cycle — and who will need plenty of money to defend her current spot or to make the leap to run for governor (read here for more on Davis’ potential gubernatorial bid).

According to Davis’ most recent campaign finance report, she made payments between February and April totaling $60,000 to prominent redistricting lawyer Gerry Hebert, a former voting rights official at the Department of Justice.

That amounted to 20 percent of the roughly $292,000 Davis spent in the reporting period covering January to June.

In the last two years, she’s also doled out roughly $125,000 from her campaign coffers to Democratic consultants for redistricting advice, according to campaign finance reports dating back to 2011.

Those records show Davis started paying Angle, the Democratic strategist, $10,000 a month for redistricting consulting just weeks after the Legislature passed the set of controversial maps that landed in court. She also paid AMM Political Strategies, a consulting team that helped run her state Senate bids, for advice on redistricting.

Davis also racked up expenses for lodging and travel to Washington D.C. and San Antonio, the two venues for her court challenges.

Money well spent, apparently.

If she decides to defend her state senate seat in 2014, instead of making a bid for governor, Davis runs on the same set of political boundaries she’s won with twice before. Gov. Rick Perry recently signed into law state political maps that cement her district — and court victory.

“Those maps are dead,” Angle said of the 2011 political boundaries.

Davis’ lawyers along with LULAC are now in the process of getting the state to reimburse legal fees.

To help Davis fight Abbott in court, LULAC spent hundreds of thousands of dollars — at least. Luis Roberto Vera, the lead LULAC lawyer in the redistricting case, said Tuesday his folks were still calculating a final bill to turn in to the state. Gerry Hebert, Davis’ lawyer, declined to comment.

A three-judge panel in San Antonio has set a deadline in early August for lawyers to file documents with the court if the two sides can’t agree on a final figure.

“They’re going to pay us. The state has agreed,” Vera said. “In the past, most the times, they’re pretty fair about it. And they know the time we put it in.”